issues and drive our intelligence. going back to the coast guard if they can only interdict 25% of drugs, that means 75% come through our ports of entry. we don t know what that means. i m a professional intelligence officer, i spent 9 1/2 years as an undercover officer in the cia. people making the drugs and moving the drugs in north and central america are hiding in a cave and we need to use all our tool kits to go after the kingpins and smugglers as well. you talk about the drug cartels making $66 billion. the u.s. intelligence budget, $61 billion. who do you think is winning that fight? every time we make a move, the narcos and traffy kantes will make a counter move.
the trump team got a little bit of covering from judge ellis on the manafort case. they re going to try to hang their hat on that. watch for that in the coming days. also a counter move, right? if he pleads the fifth, laura, there a counter. the prosecutors the special prosecutor in this case, special counsel in this case could say, all right, fine, you want to plead the fifth, i ll give you immunity. you can t be charged with obstruction or any of this stuff. is and now you can come in. must he comply if that happens, laura? let s be clear. we re talking about what s happening in manhattan. if he were to get immunity to talk about michael cohen. it would be odd depending on what the facts of the case bear out to be. he could testify and not have the same risks. of course then the fifth amendment doesn t apply.
lift a finger which he could do any hour any day to give him back the intel. he has told people he globes h believes his colleagues are out to get him and the fact that he would do that as a reflection of his colleagues being mean and not a reflection of his qualifications is remarkable. will he have a counter move based on your experience? he could lean on his father-in-law and certainly trump is at liberty to reverse that decision at any point. but it s a little bit questionable what the state of their relationship is right now, especially if jared is having tensions with kelly. we re speaking on a night when a person once thought to be a trump aide that would put out the lights, hope hicks. do you see a world where he chooses to leave or is ousted? or you don t think that s in the cards for him? i think it s possible he
it s gotten tie poio a point wh this memo is almost a circus atmosphere. democrats trying to make this counter move. it is just a circus now at this point. to go back to real underlying issues you were pointing out, this is about american intelligence gathering and how we gather information, and now all of a sudden there is this desperate dying need for the american public to know about this in a four-page memo before a full report can be released from the house intelligence committee. it s just one more bizarre turn of events. chris, if i told you a year ago or two years ago that a republican president would defy his own justice department i don t like using the possessive there, but his political appointee, that he would betray the fbi, put them in tatters, et
that will change the strategic balance on the groupd. that would be a marked escalation and would require, one would imagine, possibly congressional authorization. some argue this requires that and also strategic commitment over duration period of time and further meshing in the conflect. certainly it is better than telling the syrian air force don t leave your air bases and have us put carrier groups there to maintain 24 hour air cap. my guess is if you tell u.s. air force to take out the syrian air force in a matter of weeks they would do that. they take casualties. the s-300 air defense system on the ground is lethal. this would not be without risk. it would invite a counter move nor would it change the status of millions of refugees in syria. i argue we need significant